While the distance between rich and poor is growing in the U.S., the gap between the haves and have-nots in India is staggering to behold. This book by Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Katherine Boo jolts the reader’s consciousness with the opposing realities of poverty and wealth in the Annawaldi settlement, a slum that has recently sprung up in the western

suburbs of Mumbai, almost within a stone’s throw of new, luxurious hotels. This is an unsparing view of a world of crushing poverty, disease, physical brutality and corruption. But, of course, actual human beings with dreams and ambitions live in this awful place, and Boo centers her story on about a dozen compelling characters who are trying to improve their

circumstances. “The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition”.